Burden of Praise

Every time you hear a compliment, stop your brain from believing it because if you did, you are killed.

To be defined is to be killed. The word 'define' comes from French 'de finire', to put an end.

When someone praises you, they encircle you in a walled garden. This wall is fragile, it will shake to the next ego stroke and collapse to the smallest quake.

Easy steps to having a great mind, asking smarter questions

Smart questions start with what, great questions start with why.

The What question  

1. Concerned with outer shell, the color, the number and the statistic.

Examples of that what is the definition? What did just fell on me?

2. It is concerned with the name, the who.  

What's your name? Who are you?

3. It addresses the looks. 

What is he wearing? 

4. The outward expression, the visual part, the book cover. Imagine the asnwer.

What is that? From where do you come?

5. It is the news, the events. 

What's happening?

6. The worst way to categorize people. 

What are you? Are you different?

7. It is basic, it is novel, it is naïve. It is the facts that are available for everyone to read. 

"What the hell!?"

The Why question

1. The deeper layer of the subject. Thought provoking. 

Why did the apple fall?

2. It is the purpose, the drive that gets people going. 

Why are you doing all of this? 

3. It is the reason because. 

Why did that happen to me? 

4. It is reflective. 

Why him? Why me? 

5. It is the ideas. 

Why will they make it happen? Why do they care?

6. A better way to judge people, helps you understand.

Why are you?

7. It is advanced, it is the question children ask and ususally get, "I don't know" from adults. It is core. 

"Why the heck!?"

Art work by Jana Traboulsy (c) 2010

Asking Smart Questions vs. Asking Great Questions

Having learned from life, family, school and university, I grew up asking supposedly, the smartest questions, that are so, according to their standards.  They were apparently, expected.

Only after having asked so many stupid questions I was able to improve. Every time I asked why questions, I got the "what kind of a stupid question is that" look from my teachers & colleagues.

Try doing that. I promise you, you will get that reaction.

In the next post, I will portray the difference between what and why and what they are about, and how one should see them.

Please take note that asking the smart questions (which start with something like 'what') can make you a smart and a favorite student. I kid you not.

Quote by Eleanor Roosevelt (1884, 1962)